What do you do now?

I'm an Analyst at a technology consulting company's digital marketing group. I do web optimization. I have a Masters in cultural anthropology and thought that this would be a more practical use of my skills than the never-ending stream of non-profits that everyone is bottlenecked in right now. I graduated from college in 2010 from Bates College. It's a liberal arts school in Maine, where I studied art and art history. I also spent a year working at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and then I did my masters in London for a year.

Wow, you've done a lot already! What do you want to do in the long run?

Own a flower shop. My dream is to run a little gardening store. As you look at my dying plant, I know you wonder if I'm a good gardener... but I'm actually pretty good, this plant was not supposed to live more than two weeks, and it's been six. Quite proud of myself! I'm a big believer in the impact of our surroundings on our overall wellbeing, so I think that plants are not only a really great way of decorating but also bringing life into closed environments.

Did you grow up in a household full of plants?

Oh my god... my dad has the greenest thumb ever. When I moved out, my room turned into a green room — no joke. Our dinner table is in a bay window area, and when we go back, there's no room for the kids to sit. My dad's like, "Oh, let me move the plants" very begrudgingly. Mope, mope, mope. We've been replaced by plants. I always joke that in my next life, I want to be reincarnated either as my mom's cat or my dad's plants. That's the life to have, man. This is my home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

So where are all the places that you've lived?

I was born in Rome, and my parents are both Italian. After that, we moved to Istanbul for a year. Then we moved to the UK, where we lived in Northern England for a few years. After that, we moved to Caracas, Venezuela. Then I went to Cincinnati for the first time, and from there I went back to Europe and lived in Athens for two years. Then I went back to Cincinnati to finish high school for my junior and senior year. After that, I went to college in Maine. I spent a year and a half of that time traveling through Eastern Europe and living in Florence because I wanted to experience Italy as an adult. The six months I was traveling through Eastern Europe was taking time off from school, and then I studied in Florence for a year as a study abroad program. After that, I went back to Maine, worked in Boston, studied in London, and now I'm in New York.

Wowwww, so how many languages do you speak?

I speak four — Italian, English, Spanish and French.

Do you know where you want to be in the long run?

I think about this a lot, actually. My sister is almost 30 and getting to that point where she's trying to figure out where she wants to be, so she talks about it a lot and it's impossible for me not to think about it. I really like New York. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do. When I came here in the past, it always felt very cold and chaotic. I didn't think I could live in such a fast-paced city, but since I'm living in Brooklyn and have my own routine, it helps a lot. I think ideally I would live in Europe. I'd like to live in London again as an adult, as a real person (whatever that is, haha). I'd like to go there because I want to go back to Europe but I don't think I could live in Italy, because the political and economic situation is so abysmal that having a family there would be impossible. The UK is that perfect blend of European culture and American pragmatism, which is why I think I enjoyed it so much. Things work there, but it still has a very European vibe. Shops close on Sundays. There's a different pace, a different cadence to the speed at which life is lived.

I think most of the places you've lived have been slow pace cities.

Yeah, definitely. My favorite is Istanbul. We've been there every year since we left. Also, two summers ago after I graduated college, I spent about a month and a half traveling through Turkey. It's such a rich, rich country where the culture is so tangible. I like it so much also because it has a foreign appeal to me. It's an Islamic country, it's in a geographically unique position, and it's very different from the other places I've been. As for slow, Caracas was the sleepiest city in the world — it's like going backwards in time. But I would definitely say most places I've lived are pretty sleepy except for New York, so it's a big adjustment.

So do you prefer the sleepiness?

Not that I need the sleepiness, but I need to be in a city where I can live it at my own pace and I was always worried that I wouldn't be able to do that in New York, since it was "Go, go, go!" all the time. But actually I've realized that it's very possible to strike a balance, you just have to work for it. I haven't experienced this yet, but I think it's very easy to work 13-14 hours a day because everyone works 13-14 hours a day. It's easy to be out until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning because everything is open until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, if not later. You have to impose certain boundaries and you have to prioritize. I've seen New York as a city of excess and a city where everything is available to you at any time. If you want a cupcake at 3 o'clock in the morning, you can get one. This is wonderful but also kind of frightening. You have to prioritize. For instance, I really like running so I know that if I have too many late nights, I'm not going to wake up and go running, which is something I want. I need to choose what I want carefully.

Do you feel like you have a strong sense of how you want to prioritize your life?

I'm still figuring that out. I do know that one thing I strive for is intrinsic motivation, rather than extrinsic. We're all motivated by external forces, whether it is fear or recognition or rewards, but I'm striving to find intrinsic movements that would make me want to push forward. Whether that's happiness or mindfulness, I'm still working on finding out.

That's very interesting — do you think you developed that attitude early on? I know a lot of people in New York are swept by the tide and they don't really know what they want to do.

I had a rough couple of years when I was in college, which is why I took so much time off. Also, my dad had some health problems, which really made me reconsider what I want from life. I think it made me a very family-oriented person, so I see my family a lot, much more than I see most of my friends that I grew up with. I realize that this and the mindfulness is something that came out of that experience. I tend to be a person who loves planning ten years ahead of time. I already have my life all figured out, I just don't know who I'm going to do it with. I try to take a step back and think, "Okay, right now I'm just going to enjoy brunch with Jenny and having her over for coffee now" and not think about dinner plans tonight or tomorrow, because I find that if I do that, I don't really enjoy the present experience and right now. And there's so much to enjoy at this very moment. That's mindfulness. Also, lightheartedness — don't take yourself too seriously.

That's wonderful. Tell me a little bit about how you grew up. You moved around so much — what did your parents do? What was it like moving? Did you feel that new girl feeling a lot?

My dad worked at P&G. Because we moved around so much, home becomes something you carry around inside you, and also family becomes even more important since it's the only constant in your life. I have a few friends that I've had throughout most of my life, but I've never lived in the same home for more than 3 years. That's a problem because I find myself getting restless already and it's like, "No no no, this is going to be it for a while." I find myself getting restless because in the past 5-6 years, I haven't lived in the same place for more than a year and a half at a time.

So, home becomes something you carry around inside you because you know where your cultural compass is. I was raised in an Italian home with Italian values, but I was subjected — or exposed, rather — to a flurry of other influences. I struggled with it, and I think my younger brother did even more. There's culture clash within you, so you need to make something that resembles home inside of you and carry it with you wherever you go rather than relying on it from the outside.

Having said that, I find that I'm a big material culture person. For me, some objects in my life tell a story of where I've been, what I'm doing, and where I want to go. There's a balance between what you carry within you and the external manifestation, or artifacts of who you are. Whether it's pictures or certain books or the Turkish eye I've had since I was little, things like that become really important.

Do you think having exposure to all these cultures so early on made you interested in anthropology?

Oh, definitely. People ask me, "Do you feel Italian?" and I don't know. I don't know if I'm Italian or American or whatever — identity is something that I struggle with. I think that was one of the reasons why I wanted to study anthropology, because I wanted to understand why I am so fascinated and why I'm so taken by figuring out who I am. Also, what does it mean to be Italian, or first generation, or generation 1.5 American? We live in this world that is so complicated because of transnationalism and globalization, so we're constantly exposed to all sorts of cultures, especially in a city like New York. So, we don't live in a vacuum. For instance, when someone says, "You're Italian," well what does it mean to be Italian? Italy is a country that is fractured by so many different regions and every region is so different. Maybe China is the same way, I haven't been, but that interests me really too. When people say "I'm English," well what does that mean? England has a history of colonialism; it's complicated. It's not like white means English anymore, or white means American. It's such a layered nuance.

Actually, identity is something that's really interesting to me and it's why I started doing this project. In terms of how you view your identity, is there a ranking you feel more strongly to, whether it's gender, nationality, ethnicity, age cohort, or anything like that?

I think I feel very strongly connected to my age cohort. I mean, I identify as a woman but also I'm not a militant feminist. I feel that anyone who believes in women's rights is a feminist, so I feel like everyone should be one. But I do think that I see a distinct difference between people that are ten years older than me and ten years younger than me. I definitely identify with my age group, partially because of technology. We've been exposed to technology and integrated it into our lives early on. If you think about it, I didn't have Facebook until I was a senior in high school. Now, it's pervasive. You use it to connect with people you just met. The first thing you do is go friend them on Facebook or some other social media outlet. There's a kind of connection through technology and social media that the generation above us isn't quite as familiar with, and the generation below us was raised with. My brother has conversations through texting, but I'm still the kind of person who picks up the phone and calls. I don't think my brother ever calls his friends, ever, because it's just not what they do.

I remember being in fourth grade and memorizing my friend's home phone numbers. That just doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah, it's crazy! Also, with the texting language and meme generation, there's definitely something to be said about how technology and media have infiltrated our daily lives.

I'm sure you hear this often, but you studied art, art history and anthropology, but now you're in web optimization — what about digital marketing interests you?

I'm interested in how people engage with media. For instance, I'm really interested in personalization because I think it's fascinating that women in India don't use social media the way that women in other parts of the world do. Why? Like, there are 90 million of them or something. There are huge buckets of people that we could be tapping into and learning from to understand how we interact with the world. I think it's telling of the way that we as a society can learn from each other.

When you go to other countries, is the first thing you notice the differences and unique traits of each different area, or are you more interested in what commonalities there are across everything that you see?

I'm definitely a differences kind of person. Commonalities are things you pick up and ultimately, no one community is very different from another. For instance, there's this very interesting community in South America that experiences life through smell, so when they ask each other how they're doing, they ask, "How's your smell today?" That's tied to their spirits and things of that nature. If you think about it, that's really no different from a community emphasizing color or physical wellbeing. Different communities all relate to one another in different ways, but at the end of the day, we all relate to each other. I pick up on differences because those are more striking and it's easier to pick up on differences, but ultimately what the differences highlight is that we all exist on one big spectrum, especially because of globalization.

What's your opinion of globalization?

I think my concern with globalization is that it undermines the little guy in that it crushes a lot of the unique attributes of a community. But I also think that globalization will not be sustainable unless we start incorporating what those little communities want. I think that pushback is happening more and more — we're definitely seeing a return to spirituality and the neighborhood community.

I hear a lot about "glocalization."

Yeah, that's something we'll see more and more of. I'm not against it, but also I think it's stupid to fight globalization. It happened; it is happening. Rather than fighting it, why don't we find a way to put it to use to make better use of it? Let's turn an issue into an opportunity, as my dad would say.

I know you mentioned you wanted to run a flower shop, but after studying this, is there anything you want to do with your background in anthropology and your opinions on the matter?

My thesis was in the preservation of urban communities, so I'd love to get back into that field. I'm hoping that my position now will provide me with the skills to be able to market myself at a higher level, and to actually impact change in those kinds of organizations. I think there's a desperate need for community involvement when we're making these kinds of decisions that affect the way that we interact with our material surroundings, and also the way our material surroundings affect us. As a society, we kind of expect ourselves to impact our surroundings, but I think it's very much the opposite. The reason why people say "Brooklyn people are like this" is not because everyone in Brooklyn is like this, it's because Brooklyn has shaped the people who live here. That could apply to the Upper West Side, or Alabama, or neighborhoods of Chicago. I think that the built environment deeply impacts the way that we function on an everyday scale. More attention needs to be paid to the way that we use that.

Is this from an overall development perspective, or is it focusing on architecture or social structures or some combination?

It's very integrated. It's something that architects, urban planners, artists, and communities all need to think about. There's no separation. More and more, we're seeing interdisciplinary work because it's all one. You can't design a building these days without taking into account the environmental impact, or the impact on the local community. You need someone who can tell you this is a predominantly Hispanic community or what class they are, so you know their opportunities and how they engage with the built environment. How can we recreate this area to revitalize it so they're still a part of it and they don't feel marginalized? It's very interdisciplinary.

Do you think that you had any major influences that made you start thinking about these topics when you were growing up?

I can't point to one, but again, moving around made it impossible not to think about these kinds of things. You're always exposed to new people, people who do things differently. I did work at UNESCO for a year while I was in Florence, and it was an incredible experience. I don't believe in everything they do and it's very bureaucratic, but there is an emphasis on individuality but also collaborating to maintain that. I think that made me aware of this bigger world, and from that, I became more interested in not only preserving the objects, but also the communities and people behind it.

I'm personally very interested in this, but I went to a business school where not many people care about these topics. Do you think a lot of people our age are interested in these topics?

It's hard for me to answer that because the people I'm attracted to are thinking about these issues. (That's probably why I like talking to you; I know you appreciate people that do think about them!) Of course, in my master's program, we were all interested in it. Maybe people don't think about this all the time, but I think we will think about this more and more. We'll get to a point in ten or fifteen years where it'll be impossible not to think about these things, since there's so much literature being published about this. Articles in major magazines or periodicals are helping reach awareness. At some point, our generation will definitely focus on that. But I don't think we're all there yet.

So, our generation is in an era where technology connects us all, people are moving around all the time, and more and more, people our age are growing up without a set home. My cousin was born and raised in Shanghai, and when he got married this past year, one of the traditions was that you pick up the bride at her parent's house. I was thinking that if I ever did that, where would they go? That makes no sense. They might have to fly in Texas, maybe my family would be in Shanghai, and I don't even know where I'd be at that time. You just don't have traditions like that anymore. I'm curious how people our age are going to adapt to that. I see a lot of people not buying into where they live, and because of that, it causes very destructive habits. They don't appreciate the environment, they don't invest anything in their communities, they don't vote because they don't care to build anything where they are. I wonder about this for people in their twenties, and how they're going to transition when they grow up or if it's how they'll live their whole lives.

That's a very sad but true observation. I think about this all the time. Will there be a point in my twenties or thirties when I think, "This is my home" and I start giving a shit? I don't know, maybe we're just a generation of drifters. I think technology contributes to this because we're connected no matter where you are, even if you're not at home. You carry that community with you, which is wonderful and very practical, but it's also kind of sad. There's this disconnect. I look at my sister, who's turning 30 next week and she has lived a similar life as me but doesn't feel like one place is home. I don't think she particularly cares about one place more than another, so I don't know if it will ever kick in. I suppose a lot of what constitutes attachment to a place is where you start to build a family. I imagine that at some point (maybe), I will meet someone and settle down and think, "We need to make this a home for us, for the children," but until then, I don't know if I'll ever know.

Since you moved around a lot when you grew up, could you imagine moving your own family around a lot?

I used to say that I would never put my kids through the same thing my parents put me through. It was amazing and I had an incredible experience, but it was hard. My dad is the kind of person who coats over things. I learned some really great things, but I was also really lonely a lot of the time. I wouldn't want my kids to ever feel lonely. If I did put them through a similar experience, I would at least be able to help them through it since my parents didn't have that background. I haven't decided ultimately. I hope that if my kids grow up in one place, I would still have the courage to expose them to a lot of different things. It's very easy as a parent to want to protect them and turn them away from all that's out there because it's confusing to be exposed to a lot of different things in at early age. When you're raised in two different cultures, it's very confusing.

It's almost sad that it's mutually exclusive — you either grow up with a stable sense of home or not.

True; I don't have a real home but I really do think I carry my home with me. My house doesn't really feel like a house right now because it's inside somewhere.

Did your parents offer you the kind of companionship a friend would?

Yeah, I'm very close to my parents. Both great and kind of weird. I was close to my siblings, too. I'm also a very family oriented in person. In high school, my friends would be like, "Hey, we're going to this party" but I'd be like, "I think I'm gonna hang out with my parents..."

Are they pretty understanding with you, or are they fairly strict?

They've always let me do whatever I wanted. I think if my dad had his way, I would've been studying engineering. Instead, he let me study pottery and modern art and then get my degree in cultural anthropology. He still had his way because I ended up working for a big corporation, but I got there the way that I wanted to and not how he wanted to. Same with my sister — she works with refugees in West Africa. Not what my dad had pictured, but they give us a lot of leeway and flexibility. My parents have also had the gift of allowing us to make our own mistakes; they've never tried to say "When I was young, I did this so don't do it." It's more like, "If you're going to make a mistake, do it and we'll be there to pick up the pieces."

That's very interesting — that's a fundamentally different attitude from my parents, who always told me, "We made these mistakes growing up, so if you don't learn from it, you're wasting our mistakes."

There's value in that. In the past, my mom was like, "Yeah, I thought this was going to happen," and I'd be like, "Then why did you let this happen?!" There's definitely a balance to be struck. My mom is better about being able to pick up when I need someone to tell me not to do something. My dad is just like, "Do it! And oh... guess you failed." Thanks Dad, I guess I built a lot of character.

Haha, you must have so much character! So when we were talking about our generation being a bunch of drifters, do you imagine your future family [Chiara: My cat?] feeling this sentiment that there is no "one person" that is good for you for the rest of your life? Do you believe in that?

Hmm... I think marriage is interesting because it contradicts our biological and sociological inclination to have many partners, to get bored with one partner, to try different things. I think we're not monogamous creatures by nature, so marriage forces us into something that isn't obvious. It's a lot of work because of that. But I also think that marriage — or any monogamous long-term relationship, really — is important because it is a promise to be together for the rest of your life. It means that I promise to tell you when you're not being the best version of yourself and I promise to push you to be that. You're not going to get that if you have lots of different relationships, because there's no commitment. There's no sense of "We're in this together for the long haul." So yes, there is definitely a distancing from monogamy now, but I think that it's a shame because I worry that if I had a slew of different people in my life, then it would be very selfish and I hope not to live my life for myself necessarily. Having said that, I do think that at different phases of your life, there are more or less important people in it. Your relationship with yourself and with others, with your job, with your surroundings, can be more and less strong at a given time. I also don't think there's one person out there for you, I think that one person might satisfy certain needs, but you have friends and family as well. Everyone together makes our lives complete.

Do you feel like there's an age when that should be hammered down? Society tells us that thirty is the new twenty; forty is the new thirty, etc...

I was reading a great article in the Atlantic that was discussing when the right time is to get married...

Oh! I read this — the one where you hit thirty and you're suddenly an overnight spinster?

Haha, yes, exactly! They tell you when you're twenty, don't settle down but when you're thirty, you better a move on because your biological clock is ticking. And it's like, when am I supposed to do this all in my life? I think there's definitely a lot of confusion. I don't think there's a right time. Ideally, I'd be settling down around my 30/31 age mark, but I know people who haven't settled down till they're 40 and they're perfectly content. I know people who settled down at 25 and they're very happy too. For every person, it's very different. There is something to be said about reaching the point of maturity where you know you can be with someone forever. Two things come into play here — one is maturity, and one is having the guns to make a decision. Making a decision is the hardest part. To decide, "I'm going to do this" sometimes requires a leap of faith.

I feel like our generation is having a harder and harder time making decisions because there's so much choice out there. It's definitely something that affects us as we grow up with so much choice available to us. How do you think that impacts our lives?

My gut reaction to this is that you should ask me in six months, and maybe I'll have an answer. Well, I think that it falls on us to prioritize what we want from life. If you can figure out what you want, then you can filter out what doesn't apply to you. I think what it comes down to is trying hard to know yourself and what you want. It's hard — there's no easy way to get there. I think it comes naturally with experience in relationships, meeting new people, trying out new jobs, and over time, you learn what works and what doesn't work for you. That allows you to prioritize and filter out the choices that aren't applicable.

Do you think you're good at that?

No. (Haha.)

There's a lot of interesting things I've been reading about the "unlived lives" we haven't lived, and how it plays as large of a role as the lives we have lived. I sometimes wonder if because we have so much literature available to us, we're more aware of what's available to us. I have fear of missing out because I know what I'm missing out on.

As a woman in the workforce, we know what we're missing out on. It's really hard to be a woman who is successful at work without sacrificing your role as a mother or a wife. Even though we're definitely more progressive than our parents' generation, there's still the sense that the mother raises the children. I have a neighbor who just had a baby and she just went back to work. She was saying that she was exhausted all the time because she works at Goldman Sachs (Jenny: Oh my god) so she works ten hours a day, picks up the baby from daycare, the baby's up till 4AM, her husband also works at some investing company... so I was thinking, "Wow, she's making it all work," but I'm sure at some point, some things will fall by the wayside, whether it's her career, her kids, or her marriage. It's really hard to strike that perfect balance, unless you have people on your side who allow you to strike that. But New York is so expensive — it's hard to find a nanny. As a woman, you always ask yourself that. But I still think there's merit in considering the "unlived lives." I think all the time, if I hadn't gotten to get my masters and stayed with the MFA, I'd be a completely different person because I'd be in the art world and I'd probably still be with the guy I was dating at the time — all things that moving to London caused me to reconsider.

So, to wrap up — you've had an interesting life, but is there any kind of fun fact about you that no one else knows?

I'm pretty open about everything. Oh, I don't cut my nails — I bite my fingernails and rip off my toenails. Oops. I've never been to McDonalds! I am a bacon eating vegetarian. Well — not a fun fact, but an interesting fact is that my dad is deaf. Most people don't know that. My dad went deaf a few years ago and that really changed the way that I see things. He has a cochlear implant so we didn't have to learn sign language. He can hear, not the way that you and I hear, but for a couple of months, we weren't sure the cochlear implant would take so we were all thinking that we had to learn sign language. That's an interesting fact about the way my family operates. I guess this is telling about the way I feel about my family. When something happens to my family, it happens to me. ■